


When I'm Gone

by Gryffindancer



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angry Daryl, Coda, Daryl Dixon & Beth Greene Friendship, Daryl and Feelings, Episode: s05e08 Coda, Gen, Hurt Daryl, POV Daryl, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 03:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6406453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryffindancer/pseuds/Gryffindancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl's thoughts on the events during <i>Coda</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I'm Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I've been binging The Walking Dead lately and I've had major Daryl & Beth friendship feels ever since Coda. So this 3,500 word thing just sort of exploded out of my head last night.
> 
> To those of you following _I Just Can't Stand To See You Leaving,_ Chapter 11 will be coming very soon. Pinky swear ;)
> 
> MAJOR Walking Dead season 5 spoilers! But if you're caught up with season 6 (OMG DARYL!!!!) then you obviously know what happens in Coda. So proceed as cautioned.

Daryl’s chest felt tight the whole way up the stairs and down the hall. He adjusted his grip on officer Licari’s shirt as their group was led through the winding hospital hallways by officers Franco and McGinley. He’d been playing this apocalyptic game long enough to know that more often than not, if it seemed positive and hopeful, it wasn’t. Almost nothing was what it seemed to be on the surface -- nothing good, at least. And this was too much to hope for. It had to be.

She had helped him see the world in a better way. A less bitter way.

 _“There are still good people.”_ She had told him.

She was always encouraging him to see the good in people, in the world. But that didn’t mean she was blindly positive. He’d found that out the night with the moonshine.

_”You’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone, Daryl Dixon.”_

And of course, she was right.

The second she was gone, had been stolen away by those bastards in the car with the white cross, he had already missed her then. So he ran. He ran and he ran until his lungs were burning, and then he kept on running. Until the sun peeked up over the horizon, bathing the woods and the road with dull gray light that matched the feeling in his gut. The fork in the road is what made him stop finally. No way to know which way they went. And as soon as he had slowed his pace, he felt the muscles in his legs give out and his knees buckled. He collapsed to the ground, defeated.

He’d lost her. He’d let her get taken.

Why hadn’t he just looked through the slats on the door before he’d opened it? He’d been asking himself that same question with every step since he saw her bag spilled out on the road and looked up to find her gone.

But then that car had passed him and Carol on the road, and a tiny spark of hope flickered to life in his chest. He tried to keep it tamped down, tried not to fan it, or get too focused on the potential of finding her and seeing her again. Because, if they came this close and she wasn't there he would be so much more defeated than before. But it was getting harder and harder to do.

And his chest just kept getting tighter and tighter with each step he took. Like that flame of hope behind his sternum was burning up all the oxygen in his body, and pulling his muscles taut across his ribcage, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

And then they were standing in front of the double fire doors. Rick stepped forward first to scope out the situation, and he tried to catch a glimpse through the small rectangular windows. But there was a bright light coming from windows to the outside at the other end of the hall, backlighting everyone gathered beyond the glass in front of them. They all just blurred together into one haze of dark shapes. He had never been so nervous before.

Someone over the officer’s walkie called for the other officers to holster their weapons -- a call which Rick mirrored. Daryl reluctantly swung his rifle over his shoulder and then Rick was pushing the doors open.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light in the corridor, he finally caught sight of her.

She was standing behind Carol, who he noticed was in a wheelchair and looked a little pale, but seemed otherwise alright. One of her hands gripped the handle of Carol’s chair tightly, and the other was wrapped in a white cast that peaked out from under her sweater. He wondered briefly if that had happened before or after she had been taken, and it filled him even more hatred for these people -- officers and doctors, playing a sick game of control and payback. Noah had explained how their system worked. Explained that wards (especially female wards) were afraid to even eat sometimes for fear of what they would have to do to return the debt of the food they had taken.

All these officers with their perfectly clean uniforms, pressed and creased to a tee. Not a hair out of place.

As if the world still worked that way.

Rick had worn his uniform for the first few days after he showed up at their camp outside Atlanta, but had eventually abandoned it. There was no place for law enforcement in a lawless world, after all. Noah had also told them that Dawn, the woman in charge at the hospital, was convinced that the government would still come to save them all. That this pandemic wasn't a life sentence of pain and constant death, as he knew it to be.

But it couldn't be all bad, because there she was. She was okay -- or relatively so, at least. She was wearing the same light yellow polo and gray sweater she’d been wearing when she’d disappeared.

The woman standing in front -- Dawn, he guessed -- asked about the other officer, Lampson. The one Rick had shot when he knocked out Sasha and tried to run. Daryl breathed a small sigh of relief when officers Sheppard and Licari told her what they had agreed to say about him getting taken down by walkers. This whole thing could have all gone belly up had they told the truth. But he supposed they had plenty to lose if they didn't.

Dawn called for an exchange of the first person, and Rick nodded at him. He gave officer Licari a small shove to step forward and they made their way halfway down the narrow corridor. He reached out for Carol’s wheelchair when she was wheeled towards him. He swung the bag they handed him over his shoulder with the rifle and pushed her back towards their group. The tension in his body eased slightly at having his best friend back, and mostly safe again. Carol tilted her head up to give him a wary smile, and reached a hand around to fondly pat his own on the handle of the chair.

He got her turned around and settled as Rick stepped forward with the other officer. Dawn was walking forward, gripping Beth’s arm tightly as they met Rick in the middle of the hallway. Rick reached out as the hostages crossed each other and then she was safe. She leaned her blonde head against Rick’s shoulder, and then everything slowed down as she came towards him.

Close up he could see the large gashes that arched over her right eyebrow, and along her left cheekbone, and it pissed him off. Those bastards, beating people and letting their wards be raped or assaulted just to play their fucked up game of debt-collecting. He reached out and then she was home. His hand on her shoulder relaxing all the tightness in his chest. That tiny flame of hope exploded into full on joy and relief at having her back.

He had never been one for tearful reunions, so he decided to save his words until later, when there weren't so many people around. They would have time eventually.

Their group turned and began walking away, back towards the doors at their end of the hall.

Until Dawn asked for Noah.

It wasn't part of the deal. Wasn't part of the plan. And he knew in that moment, somewhere deep in his gut that this wasn't going to end as smoothly as they’d hoped.

Rick had already turned around, and the rest of them followed his lead more slowly. The woman argued that Noah had been her ward, and since she was losing Beth, she needed Noah back. His stomach lurched at the impending conflict. She made some bullshit argument about her officers putting their lives on the line when they go outside -- as if they weren't all doing that everyday.

Like Hershel had said once, _“You step outside, you risk your life. You take a drink of water, you risk your life. And nowadays you breathe, and you risk your life. Every moment now... you don't have a choice.”_

None of them had a choice in risking their lives anymore. So who the hell was she to suggest that they, as police officers, were any more noble for doing what all the rest of them did anymore to survive?

But Rick wasn't having it.

And neither was Daryl. He stepped forward and pushed Noah back to keep him from following Dawn’s demented order.

“He ain't stayin’.” He growled out, stalking forward to join Rick.

She spat some bullshit about them having no claim on Noah.

Like she had any more claim. People were people. Nobody was gonna claim to own another person and walk away from it Scott-free anymore. The world just didn't work that way. Like with Joe’s crew, and their rules of claiming things.

No one had any right to anything these days. You weren't owed anything by the world, and certainly not by others. You had to fight for what you wanted, had to earn it. And even then you often didn't win.

But now she was threatening to go back on their deal.

“It’s done.” Rick insisted, his voice dripping with hateful finality.

But Noah was already stepping forward. Trying to take one for the group. Taking the path of least resistance to save Carol and Beth.

He went to hand his gun over to Rick, and Daryl heard Beth behind him whisper, “It's not okay.”

His sense of unease was building again with every tension-filled second, but it skyrocketed when Noah stepped toward Dawn and Beth nearly shouted for him to wait.

She passed him to hug Noah, in goodbye it seemed, and Noah assured her it would be okay.

But then that bitch opened her mouth.

“I knew you’d be back.” She said, with a sick confidence that turned his stomach. As she said it, something menacing and manipulative flashed in her wide eyes and it had his hand inching towards his Busse.

A kind of pure hatred filled Beth’s gaze as she looked at Dawn, and it seemed like such a foreign expression on her features. Something so out of place that you want to laugh at it. He’d never seen such hate on her, not even when the Governor slaughtered her father in front of her. In that moment she’d been a holy mess of grief and pity, but not even hate like now.

Beth released Noah, who walked passed Dawn to join the hospital staff and other wards, and the carefully squared up to Dawn, looking her nearly in the eye.

Her jaw trembled and tears shone in her eyes as she spoke, “I get it now.” And when she shifted on her feet Daryl thought she was preparing to turn back around, but then she had pulled a pair of scissors out from some hidden place and plunged them deep into the meat of Dawn’s chest.

For the briefest of moments He was proud of her. Proud of her fighting for the people she loved, proud of her nerve and her fire in that action.

But then everything slowed to a crawl as her head was flung back and blood sprayed across him and Rick, the shot ringing out deafeningly in the enclosed space. Beth’s pale blonde hair stained with red, and she was falling to the floor in a lifeless heap.

It was like a rug had been ripped out from under him, the moment not even fully processed yet. But his body was already moving forward, even as Dawn looked up at them, gun still smoking in her hand and clearly horrified at what she’d just done.

It was an accident. She shook her head in disbelief, insisting that it was an accident. She didn't mean to.

But his gun was already out and aimed, and he squeezed the trigger like an instinct. Dawn fell to the floor beside Beth.

The world inched along around him. Tears collected in his eyes and his whole body trembled as somewhere in the space around him he was aware of guns being drawn on both sides, and Sheppard shouting for everyone to hold their fire.

“It's over. It was just about her.”

He knew she meant Dawn, but he couldn't see it that way.

It was just about her. Just about Beth. Just about her goodness,and her kindness, and her hopefulness. Just about the way she had broken into his fortress of doubt and planted her seeds of light and assurance.

_”I'm just used to it, things being ugly. Growing up in a place like this.” He’d said, shrugging._

_“Well, you got away from it.”_

_“I didn't.”_

_“You did.” She insisted._

_“Maybe you got to keep on reminding me sometimes.”_

And now in a fleeting second, she was gone. No longer there to remind him of what he escaped. And it felt like he’d never escaped anything. The pain of her loss, so fresh and so sudden, threatened to drown him where he stood. His knees shook, and he vaguely felt Carol place a hand on his arm to get him to lower the gun.

He was in shock. He knew what this was. It was shock. Just like she’d been in after the walker that used to be her mom had tried to attack her that horrible day outside of the barn on the Greene farm.

Now all the Greenes were dead except Maggie.

Dead.

It was such a heavy word. Like lead. It sunk into his soul and made him shake even harder.

She was dead.

Beth was dead.

She had been alive just a breath ago, and now she wasn't.

He felt like a child trying to grasp the concept of death for the first time. Funny, how he could be surrounded by death and blood for so long, but it never seemed to matter until now. It just seemed so wrong. She was so alive. So vibrant and bright, that to have something dim that light -- to snuff it out -- seemed so intensely contrary.

He looked down at her body and the growing pool of blood that seeped out of the wound in her skull. Daryl fell to his knees beside her, and brushed the pale hair out of her still open eyes. If he didn't think too hard on it, he could still see the hope reflected there. Still telling him how he was a better man than whom he’d been Before.

_“You gotta stay who you are, not who you were. Places like this, you have to put it away.”_

The tears slipped down his face and he sniffed them back as he gently pressed her eyelids closed.

_“...you have to put it away.”_

But he didn't know how to put this away. This...tragedy. More tragic than Sophia. She was just a little girl, and they’d hoped, but the odds were so far against her. More tragic than T-Dawg. He’d saved Carol in the end, made it so she could get away. So much more tragic than Merle. He might have been his brother, but he’d been a pretty shitty excuse for a family. And even in the end he’d tried to do the right thing, so it made his death almost noble in a twisted way.

But Beth...she was good. And she was strong, and brave, and all those other things that make a person worth being a person, and it had all just been an accident in the end.

A fucking accident.

Killing Dawn hadn't even felt like vengeance. It just felt like nothing.

_“...you have to put it away. You have to, or it kills you.”_

But he already felt like he was dead. This had to be worse than death. Death came with release, freedom. And this was just suffocating, crushing pain. Radiating through every bone, every fiber, every nerve ending until he felt like nothing at all.

And then he felt Rick’s hand on his shoulder. Telling him they had to leave.

Tyreese had shown up on his other side, and made like he was going to pick her up, but Daryl shoved him away roughly.

No.

It had to be him.

He slid his hands beneath her limp form and slowly lifted her up. She was heavy.

 _“You’re heavier than you look.”_ He’d told her the day she hurt her ankle in the animal trap and he given her that _serious piggyback_.

He’d forgotten.

And now she was all dead weight.

There was that word again.

He shifted her in his arms until he could carry her comfortably. Around him people were saying things, to him, about him. He didn't care. He didn't hear it.

He heard her singing that night in the funeral home.

_“And we'll buy_  
_Beer to shotgun,_  
_We'll lay on the lawn_  
_And we'll be good,_  
_Now I'm laughing at my boredom,_  
_And my string of failed attempts...”_

Her voice and the slightly off-key tone of the piano rung in his memories, teasing him of the time not long ago when her heart still beat and she still had blood flowing through her veins instead of spilled out on the tile below his feet. Every word teeming with energy and life as he lay there in that coffin listening to her play.

They were nearly outside now, and he saw a  flash of bright red that hadn't been there before. He was sick of red. He hated the color. Seeing it pooled beneath her head, seeping slowly across the floor. He never wanted to see that damn color again.

But there was a fire truck parked out front of the hospital, and as they got closer he could see the others. The ones who’d gone off to DC with Abraham and Eugene.

Maggie.

He saw the hopeful smile on her face crumple as he cleared the awning and she saw Beth’s broken body lying in his arms. Maggie screamed and collapsed to the sun-warmed pavement.

It was funny to him sometimes. Despite all that they had gone through. The hell that the world had become, some things -- silly, inane things -- stayed the same. Black-top still got boiling hot in the summer, powerlines still got knocked down in strong storms and blocked roads. It seemed so silly that these man-made vestiges of former society still existed despite the complete breakdown of everything else around them.

And he just stood there. Maggie screamed Beth's name, and he could do nothing but stand there with the lifeless body of the best person he’d ever known.

He didn't know how to put this away.

He didn't think there was any way to put this away. And maybe it would kill him. And maybe he wouldn't mind that so much.

But he knew they’d keep going, keep surviving. No matter how impossible that seemed at that moment. They had to.

Like Hershel had said, _”...Nowadays you breathe, and you risk your life. Every moment now... you don't have a choice. The only thing you can choose is what you're risking it for.”_

He didn't know what he was risking his life for now that she was gone, but it wasn't as if he could just stop. That would have pissed her off even more than that time she had yelled at him for being a jackass.

_“I want to you stop acting like you don't give a crap about anything. Like nothing we went through matters. Like none of the people we lost meant anything to you. It's bullshit!”_

Like none of the people they lost meant anything to him.

She had meant so much to him. She had taught him how to stay human in this unapologetically shitty world. And now he’d lost her -- for good this time.

But he kept hearing the same thing in his head. Her voice warning him over and over like some kind of soothsayer, _“You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon.”_

Eventually, he became aware of everyone around him moving, trying to get him to move. Someone, he wasn't sure who, offered to take her body from him.

His arms ached with her weight, but he shook his head. He couldn't give her up. Couldn't let go.

Somehow he ended up in the front seat of the fire truck, still clutching her body, as they rumbled steadily down the road. He didn't remember that part.

Her voice kept echoing in his head. He knew they would keep moving, would put this away somehow. But he had no idea how.

The ache in his chest just grew stronger, heavier as her words continued to echo in his memory.

_“You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon._

He looked down at her still face, dried blood smeared across her pale skin.

And he missed her.

Oh how he did.


End file.
